When Ankita Lokhande shared her shocking experiences of facing casting couch: 'He was a big actor...'

Ankita Lokhande gained nationwide fame after she played the lead female characters of Archana Karanjkar Deshmukh and Ankita Deshmukh Karmarkar on the popular television show Pavitra Rishta, that ran for more than five years on Zee TV from 2009 to 2014. For the first three years, the late actor Sushant Singh Rajput played the male lead character of Manav Deshmukh.

As Ankita Lokhande was an outsider in the Hindi entertainment industry, she had to struggle her way to the top and that also included facing the casting couch. In an interview in 2021, the actress shared two such shocking incidents.

Speaking to Bollywood Bubble, Ankita said, "Bahot pehle jab main choti thi, mujhe South film ke liye bulaaya gaya tha. (Long ago, when I was small and immature, I was called for a South movie). He called me into his room and said, ‘Ankita we want to ask you something.’ I was like, ‘Yes.’ He then said, ‘Aapko compromise karna padega. (You will have to compromise)'. I was so smart, I was alone in that room and was 19 or 20 years old, asked him, ‘Which type of compromise does your producer want? Do I have to go to parties or dinners?"

The actress further added, "Because I did not want to go there when he says 'you will have to sleep with the producer'. And the moment he said it, maine uski band baja di thi (I took him to task). I told him, ‘I think your producer wants a girl to sleep with, not a very talented girl to work with.’ And I left from there. He then apologised and said he will try to take me to his film. But I said, ‘If you try and take me in also, I’m not interested in your film'."

Recalling the second incident, which she said happened after Pavitra Rishta, Lokhande shared, "When I got back again into films, I felt it again, just holding hands with that person. I don’t want to take names, he was a big actor, everybody knows him. I got those vibes, and I quickly got my hands away from him. I knew it, ab mera yaahan nahi hoga ((it will not work out for me), because it is a give-and-take thing. I understood and I left from there because it was not for me."

Ankita made her Bollywood debut in Kangana Ranaut-starrer 2019 historical action drama Manikarnika: The Queen of Jhansi and will be seen next in Randeep Hooda's Swatantrya Veer Savarkar.

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